Category Archives: Arc 6.3: Alien Robot Autopsy

I rolled that around in my mind for a moment. “Let me get this straight. The Hrnnna we talked to earlier were pretty clearly freaked out by how Haley looked or smelled or something-”

[Unsurprising. Her transformed self is nearly identical to the troops the Abominators used for hand to hand combat.]

We’d suspected based on the Hrnnna’s reaction to her, but I felt my jaw drop at the jet’s confirmation.

Since hearing the story of how she broke up with Sean, I’d suspected that the biggest part of her unhappiness about her change came from the fear surrounding the police investigation that followed the breakup. That and the fact that she didn’t feel like she could control her transformation.

Confirmation that she was so close to one of the Abominators’ slave races wouldn’t help.

Was there any reason I could think of that the Spinward Searchers for Knowledge Valued clan might have a grudge against the Hrnnna?

No.

Whatever was going on here probably had its roots in alien politics, and I didn’t know anything about alien politics beyond the fact that pretty much everyone hated humans. Did I know anyone who might know more? Lee, probably, but he wasn’t always available when I needed him.

Plus, I had two alien AI’s here in HQ with me. Cassie’s gun wouldn’t be much help. From what she’s said, the Nine had found it as part of some sort of archeological dig. It might have been out of the action for thousands of years. The jet’s AI, however, might not be up on the latest events in space, but it probably knew the basics.

I hadn’t had Vaughn carry the robots all the way to League HQ. A tornado isn’t exactly subtle. More to the point, it’s not exactly a mode of transportation that can carry a couple robots to HQ without giving anyone a hint that we’re there.

That’s why I told Vaughn to drop the two robots in an open field off the side of the highway. I don’t know if anyone owned it. Brown grass lay on the ground, a thin layer of snow covering it.

League HQ—On Sunday afternoon, I made some time to investigate the robots that had attacked us. By investigate, I mean take apart.

We’d brought home two of them—the least damaged ones. Neither of them looked good, but neither of them had surrendered, so there you go.

Because they were both about the size of the van, I’d brought them into HQ’s hangar. Because I kept certain tools in the lab, but not in the hangar, I’d had to lug a pile of tools over.

It took time, and that’s why I had SuperTV playing simultaneously in every room, and that’s why I was watching “Hero Scoop with Baz Wilson.”

It wasn’t that I particularly liked the show. He was more often wrong than right, but when he was right, it could be a disaster. When he’d done a show on Hard Luck, he’d inadvertently revealed the guy’s secret identity. You could argue it was mostly Hard Luck’s own probability powers working against him, but he wasn’t the only hero who’d been outed that way.